I see it as compensating for disadvantages people have. So, if one student has lower test scores, but achieved them despite going to an underfunded school and having a part-time job, then that student scores are actually more impressive than someone else who scored better, but had private tutors throughout high school. Once you account for people’s disadvantages, you should naturally get more diverse student body.

And of course minority students have disadvantages that should be accounted for. But they don’t affect everyone the same, and racial quotas is a very lazy way to do this. Instead, admissions should look at the individual circumstances of each student.

Why? Colleges can still give preference to students who live in poor neighborhoods or bad school districts. What’s the problem with that approach?

It’s not really human rights violations that drive US sanctions anyway. There’s plenty of other countries that are rife with human rights violations, but don’t get sanctions. So long as they listen when US interests are concerned, they’re fine.